This week I’ve been making stencils…and thinking about the role of words in my process. Since I want to share the stencil imagery with you…but don’t want to say much about it otherwise….I figured it would be a perfect week to opine about titles while populating this otherwise wordy blog with the new stencil images. Words and pictures that don’t necessarily go together, but nonetheless reinforce one another in some tangential way.
I’ve always been a word person. When embarking on a new project, my “sketch” is often the title I come up with. Some recently arrived at monikers: Ornamental Invasion…Illusive Insurgency…Nefarious Hybrid…Capricious Eradication Prototype… Picturesque Evacuation Ploy. The words suggest forms, movement, and mood. They conjure associations, but also contradictions—visual synonyms and antonyms that meet the titles’ literary challenges. A title doesn’t simply describe something already existent—it serves as a catalyst for what the work might become.
My carefully chosen (and admittedly loquacious) titles point me in new directions, providing both symbiosis and dissonance in my process. I spend hours poring over Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, considering not only the obvious meaning of words, but also lesser known interpretations. I recite words aloud, weighing the way they slip off my tongue. I love it when fierce words sound passive and pretty words sound combative. Nefarious has such a pleasant ring!
Of course, during the grueling fabrication of the work, I sometimes forget the armature of literary phrases to which it was first bound. The work takes on its own life, veering away from the words that initially anchored it and exploring new directions.
In rare cases, the title is the final component of the work. In such cases, it still offers new potential. Like a child given an exotic name, the work lives up to its new appellation because the words assigned to it expand its possibilities in the minds of the viewers. Words are loaded. It’s impossible to escape them without judgment or bias.
On Friday night, you can often find me curled up with a crossword puzzle or enjoying a heated game of Scrabble. I find language poetic, persuasive, and ultimately powerful, even in its less intentionally poetic or persuasive forms. The words we choose, and the way we choose to say them, says something about us.
Lately, I’ve been scanning lists of military terminology, exploring a combative use of language that might point the viewer towards alternative readings of the work. A beautiful, symmetrical, ornamental form might seem very seductive until it exposes itself as a gun…a sword…or a cannon. Words, in the form of titles, can help the viewer connect the dots between interpretation and my intent.
Still, despite my carefully considered epithets, I don’t want to hit the viewer over the head. As with the work itself, I’m happy if titles offer up new possibilities rather than definitive answers.